Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850 | Page 5

SENEX gives some account of the burning of a female in the Old Bailey, "about the year 1788."
Having myself been present at the last execution of a female in London, where the body was burnt (being probably that to which SENEX refers), and as few persons who were then present may now be alive, I beg to mention some circumstances relative to that execution, which appear to be worthy of notice.
Our criminal law was then most severe and cruel: the legal punishment of females convicted of high treason and petty treason was burning; coining was held to be high treason; and murder of a husband was petty treason.
I see it stated in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that on the 13th of March, 1789,--
"The Recorder of London made his report to His Majesty of the prisoners under sentence of death in Newgate, convicted in the Sessions of September, October, November, and January (forty-six in number), {261} fourteen of whom were ordered for execution; five of whom were afterwards reprieved."
The recorder's report in regard to these unfortunate persons had been delayed during the incapacity of the king; thus the report for four sessions had been made at once. To have decided at one sitting of council upon such a number of cases, must have almost been enough to overset the strongest mind. Fortunately, these reports are now abolished.
In the same number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, under date the 18th of March, there is this statement,--
"The nine following malefactors were executed before the Debtors' Door at Newgate pursuant to their sentence, viz., Hugh Murphy and Christian Murphy alias Bowman, Jane Grace, and Joseph Walker, for coining. [Four for burglary, and one for highway robbery.] They were brought upon the scaffold, about half an hour after seven, and turned off about a quarter past eight. The woman for coining was brought out after the rest were turned off, and fixed to a stake and burnt; being first strangled by the stool being taken from under her."
This is the execution at which I was present; the number of those who suffered, and the burning of the female, attracted a very great crowd. Eight of the malefactors suffered on the scaffold, then known as "the new drop." After they were suspended, the woman, in a white dress, was brought out of Newgate alone; and after some time spent in devotion, was hung on the projecting arm of a low gibbet, fixed at a little distance from the scaffold. After the lapse of a sufficient time to extinguish life, faggots were piled around her, and over her head, so that her person was completely covered: fire was then set to the pile, and the woman was consumed to ashes.
In the following year, 1790, I heard sentence passed in the Criminal Court, in the Old Bailey, upon other persons convicted of coining: one of them was a female. The sentence upon her was, that she should be "drawn to the place of execution, and there burnt with fire till she was dead."
The case of this unfortunate woman, and the cruel state of the law in regard to females, then attracted attention. On the 10th of May, 1790, Sir Benjamin Hammett, in his place in the House of Commons, called the attention of that House to the then state of the law. He mentioned that it had been his official duty to attend on the melancholy occasion of the burning of the female in the preceding year (it is understood he was then one of the sheriffs of London), he moved for leave to bring in a bill to alter the law, which he characterised as--
"One of the savage remains of Norman policy, disgracing our statute book, as the practice did the common law."
He noticed that the sheriff who did not execute the sentence of burning alive was liable to a prosecution; but he thanked Heaven there was not a man in England who would carry such a sentence into effect. He obtained leave to bring in a bill for altering this cruel law; and in that session the Act 30 G. III. c. 48. was passed--
"For discontinuing the judgment which has been required by law to be given against women convicted of certain crimes, and substituting another judgment in lieu thereof."
A debt of gratitude is due to the memory of Sir Benjamin Hammett, for his exertions, at that period, in the cause of humanity. Thank God, we now live in times when the law is less cruel, and more chary of human life.
OCTOGENARIUS.
* * * * *
A NOTE ON MORGANATIC MARRIAGES.
Grimm (_Deutsche Rechts Alterthumer_, vol. ii., p. 417.), after a long dissertation, in which it appears that the money paid by the bridegroom to the wife's relations (I believe subsequently also to the wife herself) had every form of